New York Times expat writer Maxine Swann on Buenos Aires

The New York Times is talking about Buenos Aires again...this time with a story written by American expat Maxine Swann...

At Home Abroad

Crisis and Renewal

João Pina for The New York Times

WITH A VIEW When Maxine Swann, an American writer, moved to Buenos Aires in 2001, her first apartment overlooked the Plaza Las Heras, once a prison and now a park.

By MAXINE SWANN

Published: June 19, 2008

“I’M sad that you see Argentina like this,” Pola Oloixarac, my new Argentine friend, said one night in November 2003 as we passed a cluster of figures picking through heaps of garbage bags on the otherwise deserted streets downtown. “It’s because of the crisis, you know.” She was referring to the economic crisis of 2001, the most dramatic societal upheaval in over a decade in a country prone to such upheavals.

“But soon you’ll see,” she added. “Everything will get more and more beautiful.”

I moved to Buenos Aires in April 2001, a few months before the crash, after my Argentine husband, Juan Pablo, received an offer to write a series for Argentine television. I was 32 and had just signed a contract to write my first novel. read the full article here

Comments

[Radiobar]

Amazing view of the park!

[John]

This story is told by a dreamer. It doesn't say much about Buenos Aires. I know that this sounds very negative but nothing has changed from the 2001 crisis. As a matter of fact, we are in a crisis currently. Prices of EVERYTHING have gone through the roof with no stopping in sight. The county is in complete dissarray, as usual.